to wonder if the concept of a 'yummy mummy' is a feminist issue, a class issue or just my issue

[IveNoIntentionOfMakingCupcakes]

Yesterday, I met a father who made a comment about me being a 'yummy mummy'. At the time I smiled, was slightly embarrassed and also slightly irritated but I wasn't all that sure why?

Maybe it was just because he was a smarmy git but maybe it was something more. I have only ever heard the term used to imply that a woman is attractive and/or that a woman is middle class. It seems to me that the whole concept of 'yummy mummies' implies that there is also a group that are not 'yummy' and that's quite insulting really. AIBU?

[HipHopOpotomus]

apart from this thread obviously

[HipHopOpotomus]

It's just another crap media driven 'stereotype' - I ignore it completely.

[WitchesTit]

choose although coose away if that's what floats yer boat.

[WitchesTit]

It's a media invention.

First choose a rhyme. Then think up a demographic that it could apply to.

"Ummm what does 'daddy' rhyme with? Oh yeah, 'Laddy'. Lets have 'Laddy Daddies' who are like, lads who are also dads!"
They're all over the place, haven't you seen them?? They're the ones resting their pint on their babybjorn while wiping dribble off their skinny jeans.

Someone once said that witch burning could have been made more appealing if there'd been a rhyming slogan behind the campaign, "Snitch on a witch and we'll burn the bitch" was the example given i believe (thanks Ian Hislop).

You can coose whether you want to be part of it. Or not.

[MoomieAndFreddie]

someone bought me that how to be a yummy mummy book before i had DC1

it made me really angry, it was the most shallow load of shit i had ever read

there is loads of really offensive shit in it, and at one point she says you are doomed to a bucket fanny if you have a natural birth. (i paraphrase, but thats the gist of it)

[pongysticks]

McHappyPants2012 i'm with you the MILF one was said to me once I was a bit seeing as my eldest DS is 9. I did have to ask what it meant though so having it explained was a bit embarrassing - Yummy mummy annoys me a bit, it sort of leans towards saying that there isn;t much going on between the ears, just coffees, shopping and driving round in a nice car.

[thekidsrule]

well i could think of worse names to be called

hell do people really get upset about this

[furrygoldone]

I thought the phrase came from a book about how to be a yummy mummy, I saw the women who wrote it in breakfast years ago, it stuck in my mind because she made some comment about how working mothers couldn't be yummy mummies and I decided she was an arse and that it was a dreadful phrase.

[snooter]

I'd rather be thought sexy than a decorative airhead. Agree neither is flattering - just thinking if I had to choose

[UltraBOF]

Why? That sounds like an odd thing to say. They are both pretty disparaging, but I would have thought that was even worse.

[snooter]

I'd rather be known as a MILF than a Yummy Mummy.

[IveNoIntentionOfMakingCupcakes]

MILF is mother I'd like to f**k

[pippibluestocking]

what's a MILF?

[MoomieAndFreddie]

yanbu i hate it

[IveNoIntentionOfMakingCupcakes]

Do people really use it about themselves? That's just strange...

[Woozley]

I find it a naff expression, especially when people use it about themselves. At least he didn't say you were a MILF...

I got called a MILF outside Asda by a group of lads

[chris481]

A Range Rover is unnecessary, a Golf could do the same job.

[Jusfloatingby]

I hate that expression. It makes me think of dyed blonde airheads in 4x4s who put their name on waiting lists for designer handbags that cost £1,000s and dress up to go to Tesco.

[Pendeen]

"...driving badly in huge unnecessary cars etc..."

Wonder what an unnecessary car is?

[kickassangel]

Those saying that it's just a kind of short-hand are pretty much hitting the nail on the head for WHY it's an issue. Cos stereotyping is short hand and lazy, so it relies on commonly perceived views. ie, MOST mums let themselves go, look grubby etc. Therefore those who don't are 'yummy mummies'.

There is lots more to this phrase than that one aspect, but that is WHY such stereotypes need to be challenged.

[IveNoIntentionOfMakingCupcakes]

It seems like it's a phrase that is used as a compliment about an individual but often devisive and undermining when used about a group.

As it happens, in one way I fit the stereotype; I am middle class and a SAHM, but I am also skint, wear old clothes and, with a newborn and a toddler, I don't do much grooming. Like most people, regardless of parental status, I have good days and bad days. I'm pretty confident but I certainly don't think I am any better or any worse than anyone else. Please don't shout at me for any of this, it's neither self-congratulating nor self-pity, it's just the back-story to my original post...I still think it's a rubbish phrase -probably more than ever now - but have been reading your thoughts with much interest.

[Mosman]

I'd rather be a yummy mummy than a milf, not comfortable with that turn of phrase at all

[GhostShip]

After thinking about it, I think it's just one of them, it depends what sense it's used in.

Like 'princess'. Love it when my stepdad says I'm 'his little princess', if any other man did we'd have to have words.

[WorraLiberty]

I really couldn't give a flying fuck about what the yummies think of my appearance. One asked me once if I'd had my eyes LASERed because I was wearing my contact lenses instead of my glasses, so my appearance had obviously been clocked.

See I think things like that are more about self confidence...or lack of it.

If she'd said that to me, I would have thought she was just making polite conversation.

And unless she was blind, of course she 'clocked' your appearance as you put it.

[nkf]

It's not any kind of issue. It's just a form of shorthand invented by journalists that other people have picked up on.